Monday, January 7, 2013

Whole30 Challenge: Day 1

Hello, and welcome to Day 1.

Day 1 is pretty easy.  It hasn't sunk in to my little kitty brain that there will be NO soda for the next 30 days.  Or soy sauce.  Or sugar.  Funny, I didn't think I ate a lot of sugar because I rarely eat candy, cookies, ice cream, cake, etc., or really drink alcohol anymore.  But today what keeps popping in my head is stuff like ketchup and teriyaki sauce -- all usually chock full of HFCS.

The Whole30 folks warn that your bad times in starting the Whole30 will be proportionate to the amount of crap you were eating before you started Whole30.  They specifically mention that this is particularly difficult for the diet soda people.  I am very happy that I had mostly converted from diet soda to regular soda, and in fact to soda with real sugar rather than HFCS.  (That's High Fructose Corn Syrup, BTW.)  I'd been finding it harder and harder to drink non-diet soda.  It was really sweet and I was satisfied by just a few sips of it.  My expectation was that it would be the mental aspect of a cold soda first thing in the morning that I would have issues with.  Kind of like how a long time smoker automatically reaches for that first cigarette upon waking, without even thinking about it.  I didn't have the morning urge today, but after I finished lunch I almost got up to go grab a soda, then I remembered. 

Mind you, I'm not completely off caffeine.  I'm not insane.  I've had two cups of green tea by lunch time. 

Speaking of lunch, I made up a batch of Rogan Josh which I got from the Well-Fed cookbook.  Usually it is made with lamb and yogurt; the Whole30 version is with coconut milk, and I did beef because the store I shopped at last night didn't have the cut of lamb I needed for this.  The first few bites I was ambivalent about it because I could immediately taste the cinnamon and cayenne.  Luckily both of those tastes faded from prevalence and it turned out to be pretty good.  If I make it again, though, I won't do the cinnamon.  I think there were cloves in there too, not a big fan of that flavor with meat either. 

Similar issue with the Scotch Eggs I made for breakfast.  Really, where can you object to a hard boiled egg wrapped in ground pork?  I did have a few teeny objections though....  One of the spices for the meat is nutmeg, that was too prevalent for my tastes and I'll omit that next time.  Also think that my taste buds were expecting more of an italian sausage kind of an experience.  I'd go more that way next time.  Plus wrap them in bacon. 

Because really, where can you object to a hard boiled egg wrapped in ground pork wrapped in bacon? 

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

4 comments:

  1. I'm on day 4 of the Whole30 myself! I'm looking forward to reading about your experience with it. It might get rough from here on out, but hang in there!

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  2. I'm so happy you are giving this another try! It's the best thing I ever did for myself. It gets better, after day 10 or so!

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  3. I think I'm hitting the "KILL ALL THE THINGS" phase a couple of days early! I nearly wept from the sweetness of the apple I had with lunch today. Never would've thought sugar would be (so far) be my main issue.

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  4. I'm already stressed. I'm trying to get off the Diet Pepsi and this made me shaky and want to get some!

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